KAMLA COMES HOME

Kamla is any woman who would rather stay at home than go out to work ­ a noticeable trend among urban women. Whatever happened to the feminist dream of self-worth and financial independence?


NOT THAT long ago, in the Seventies, feminists urged women to go out of their homes and work. Domesticity limited their potential, women were told, they could do much more with their lives than remain restricted to their nurturing and homemaking roles. `What men can do, women can do too, and maybe better“ was their anthem.

Fast forward to thirty years later. Today, the idea of women going out to work is commonplace.
Economic independence has been the buzzword for women for years now.
But wait, something else is afoot here. A growing number of women today are actually choosing not to go out into the workplace. Maybe they've tried working and opted out because they couldn't manage home and office. Maybe they've stopped working to bring up their children. Maybe they still work out of the house, or do a bit of free lance work. Or maybe it's none of the above ­ maybe they want to stay at home. Whatever the reason, here's a question: what happened to the fierce desire to be someone other than stay-at-home-women? JUST A REBELLION?

Some men ­ at the risk of having women shout them down ­ still view the Seventies movement as a rebellion to be “different“ rather than as something that grew out of an intrinsic belief.
“That is what it was ­ a rebellion,“ says Chandra Bagheria, a Bangalore-based businessman. “It happened at a point when the idea of women working wasn't so prevalent. That's why the idea of women going out to work was `eulogized' and looked at as `the only' way for women's emancipation. Then times changed and so did the general psyche.
Going out to work was no longer taboo. Once the reason to rebel didn't exist, how could the rebellion itself continue?“ he asks.
Abhishek Kant, a marketing professional with an IT firm, agrees. “Unlike men, who grow up with the notion that they have to provide for the family, the idea of going out to work was not `intrinsic' to women in general. It was a certain section of feminists who propagated the idea and it became a movement. But women were never told that they needed to be the bread winners,“ he says. What does one do all day if one stays at home? AFTER A busy, fast-track life, isn't home and household work a little too mundane? No, say our SAHW (stay-at-home-women, silly). With more and more avenues for entertainment opening up and with so many things to do, life at home is definitely not limited to watching TV and waiting on/for husbands and kids. Whether it's going to the mall, partying with friends, travelling, joining pottery or salsa classes or participating in charities, life needn't be dull at all. Almost all women who have decided to stay at home assert that it is fairly `cool' to be home.

“Well, I may stay at home but I don't do the sweeping, cleaning and cooking. I read, go for jogs and to the gym, swim twice a week, go to a spa at least twice a month, watch films on DVDs, listen to music... basically do anything and everything that I want to without having to stress about meeting any deadlines,“ laughs Udita Gopal, a consultant. TV journalist Prerna Kapoor too falls in the same category. Tired of clocking in for TV bulletins and rushing about meeting deadlines, she quit her job just before she got married. “The initial plan was to move abroad, but that didn't happen. Having left work already, however, I decided to enjoy my marriage. Travel is what I intended to do and did do, lots of it. I travelled across the world and through India with my husband. While these were work trips for him, they were holidays for me,“ she says. Two years later, Kapoor is still in that blissful zone. Though she sometimes feels the urge to get back to work, she says it has to be around her routine.
Merchandising executive Anamika Khare who quit after her wedding is happy doing pottery.
“Once the course is over, I might start my own pottery classes or make pottery that I can sell.
It'll be work and it'll also be great fun. All in the comfort of my home,“ she says. TUHIN SINHA Here's a man unlike most men ­ he doesn't go out to work “My wife is at peace with me being a house husband“ I was given to understand some years ago that I belong to that category of men whom women ideally like to have as their boyfriends, not husbands ­ the creative sort who likes to live a life of nomadic fantasy, sans the stability that a woman looks for. To that extent, I think my wife is a really brave woman as she is at peace with me being a writer house-husband.
Not that I've never been in a job, but I think I realised way too early that I was too much my own man to be bound by other people's instructions. Leading the life that I do has given me the freedom to explore myself beyond my own imagination and I'm happy with the way I've grown professionally and personally in the last few years, which would not have been possible otherwise.

Yes, there are uncertain phases when the anxiety is bound to rub off on your spouse as well.

But I'm happy my wife has just shown a lot of confidence in me in those phases. Of course she realises the advantages of my flexi-working hours ­ like dropping her to her office, barely half a kilometre away from home.
Is it tougher for a man to live the life of a freelancer? I guess one is conditioned to believe that way. But the point is, should one stick to the belief at the cost of what one really wants to do in life? If you ask me, it's as much about a personal choice as your entire life is. I'd personally pursue what my heart tells me to, because there's no point leading a compromised life which I might regret later.

Does the uncertainty bore me now? Nope, I'd say. The key to not getting bored is doing as many different things as possible and/or doing them as differently as possible. That explains why each of my books belongs to a different genre and why I'm constantly juggling between books, scripts, newspaper columns and commissioned writing assignments.

Would I be fine if my wife chooses to quit her job too? Well, why not? Sometime ago, we'd worked together to set up my content management firm, Write Quotient. Unfortunately, we couldn't give the venture the attention it required. But in future when we decide to start a family, I'll be more than happy if she quits her job and instead takes care of this firm. I can't be not encouraging her from leading the life I have so stubbornly led.